Billboard (outdoor) advertising can quite powerful.
In a recent HubSpot article, Sam Kusinitz identified 15 great examples (complete with photos and video clips). Here are two of them. The first is an ad from
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Even before I took a marketing class, I notice that most billboards aren’t very good at getting people’s attention. Geico’s “15%. Need I say more,” (which is the billboard I see the most) only reminds us that they have good tv commercials and most other billboards just remind us what town we’re driving through by telling us of their attractions (local casino’s, restaurants, etc.). Humourous billboards like these aren’t trying to just make (hopefully only) passengers in passing cars, but actually push to get free advertising on social media pages that they don’t control, exactly like the link posted.
These are great advertisements since they actually get the audience’s attention. Instantly grabbing the audience’s attention is crucial to having a successful bill board. These billboards are creative and and memorable resulting in the audience to talk about it, raising awareness for the company and its product.
Whenever I see these type of billboards, I’m always really impressed. A company took something as outdated as a billboard and brought it into the 21st century, which is no easy feat. My personal favorite is the Allstate advertisement with the car hanging off of a parking garage. It certainly will get people to take a second look, and in marketing, those extra few seconds of thought are important.
All the ads in this post are extremely innovative. Clever advertising such as these cause a huge buzz among those that see it. In the case of the Audi versus BMW ad war, I believe BMW won because they ultimately got the last word and the best location. I am always fairly amazed when advertisers are able to take something as boring, plain and outdated as a billboard and transform it into a powerful message to the public. These are all really successful in attracting attention.